Politicians are jumping over each other to demand that the disgraced former RBS chief Fred "the Shred" Goodwin should be stripped of his knighthood. Why? What difference would it make? I can see that the ritual of public humiliation might turn some people on, but this futile gesture won't help the huge number of folk fruitlessly looking for work or trying to pay bills. It won't build a single affordable home, fund a crèche or keep a library open. Ed Miliband is the latest lemming to demand Fred's head on a platter, telling anyone who'll listen that Gordon Brown should "never" have handed out the accolade in the first place.

As Ed Miliband made yet another "relaunch" speech last week, I looked across the room where I was lunching and spotted a geeky-looking bloke with bog-brush hair, wearing a pristine white shirt and a red tie – his brother David, impossible to ignore. He looked too scrubbed up, a bit otherworldly. Gary Lineker was nearby, but he blended into the hustle and bustle, a regular-looking chap with a bit of a tan. What is it about the Milibandroids that sets them apart from us, no matter how often they say they understand our aspirations and our concerns?

January is traditionally the month of deep self-loathing. Big bills and big bellies inevitably lead to thoughts of new beginnings, a chance to mend our ways, and start afresh. Turn on the television, open any newspaper or magazine and you can't ignore exercise DVDs and diet books. Davina McCall (slender mother of three) reigns supreme at the top of the bestsellers (again), and even the comical Towie mob is flogging a keep-fit routine, complete with extras such as "what to wear to work out in Essex". Ignore them. Here's how to deal with windy and grim January: eat the same food as in December. I've enjoyed macaroni cheese, fish and chips and fruit cake, done the same amount of walking, played the same amount of tennis. When appearing in public, I wear a pair of buttock-clenching pants.

Buckingham Palace has a terrible sense of timing. As the latest figures show unemployment reaching the highest level for 17 years, one group of plucky Brits can look forward to a spot of sun and fun in 2012, and, even better, they won't have to pay: the hard-up British taxpayer will. Lavish plans to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee were unveiled last week, just as the number of women out of work passed a million, just slightly more than the number of jobless young people. Given that Great Britain plc is staring at the very real possibility of a double-dip recession, and personal debt is higher than ever, you might think the bureaucrats who organise events for the Royal Family would have some sense of appropriateness, of adapting to straitened times. Sadly, not.

I guarantee that the one sport we'll win gold medals at in 2012 is loafing. We'll excel at lounging on a sofa staring at a screen, one hand around a jumbo bar of Dairy Milk, the other resting by a can of fizzy liquid.

It's that time of year again – pubs and pizzerias full of gurning office workers wearing paper hats and pulling crackers, downing house plonk by the bucket load, all in the name of seasonal good cheer. Later there'll be puke in the gutters and piss on the back walls of buildings up and down the land.

Ed Balls blubs – not because more black boys rot in jail than attend our leading universities – but at the price of a pot on Antiques Roadshow. A teenage criminal can't see why he should say sorry and more or less tells his victims to bugger off. On an everyday level, we rarely bother with a simple thank you (and most of us don't mean it either). Does "cheers" do the job? Our emotional wiring seems to be in meltdown.

Around 9pm on Wednesday, a police helicopter hovered a few hundred feet over my home (next to sheltered housing for the elderly) in central London. The noise was deafening, the feeling of utter helplessness unnerving. Why were the residents of Islington, Holborn, Finsbury and Clerkenwell being subjected to unpleasant harassment in the name of maintaining law and order? It was clearly pointless calling the police, so I just seethed.

I was thrilled you've finally realised that you and your high-earning pals are the single most reviled group of "workers" in the UK. Maybe it's because you make huge amounts of money by the click of a mouse and profit by other people's debts, while the rest of us think that work is something that involves an activity, a physical or mental effort, an interaction with a reality rather than an inspired gamble. I was impressed that your speech for the BBC last week asked bankers to become "better citizens" to regain our trust. Not easy – you've been described as "the unacceptable face of capitalism" – so how are you going to reinvent yourself and step up to the challenges facing Britain by creating jobs and helping other people?

Clare Wood met George Appleton on Facebook. After their relationship ended, he turned up at her house, smashed the front door, and threatened her with an iron. Clare called the police, but four months later, Appleton strangled her, set her body on fire and then hanged himself.